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The president Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he will "immediately" request a new hearing from the United States Supreme Court regarding the issue of birthright citizenship, just days after the high court ruled against him.
“I will request a new hearing before the United States Supreme Court, IMMEDIATELY. This judicial error will destroy the United States if they do not change their absolutely deranged decision,” the leader wrote on Truth Social, where he also described the verdict as “absolute madness.”
The ruling that Trump seeks to overturn was issued on June 30 in the case Trump v. Barbara, with a vote of 6 to 3, reaffirming that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to everyone born on U.S. soil, regardless of their parents' immigration status.
The Chief Justice, John Roberts, wrote the majority opinion with the support of both conservative and liberal justices.
An extraordinarily rare resource
The request for a new hearing is an uncommon mechanism in the modern jurisprudence of the Supreme Court.
In order for it to succeed, it would require that five out of the nine magistrates voted in favor of the reconsideration, a threshold that is very difficult to reach given that the original majority was six votes.
In addition, the application must be submitted within 25 days following the issuance of the ruling, which sets a tight deadline for the administration.
The conservative fracture that supports Trump
Although Trump lost the case, the division within the conservative bloc gives him political leeway to continue exerting pressure.
The three dissenting votes came from judges Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch. Alito termed the ruling as a "mistake" and argued that it "provides a strong incentive to enter or remain illegally in this country."
Thomas wrote a 91-page dissenting opinion in which he stated that the decision "devalues" citizenship as understood by the drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The judge Brett Kavanaugh voted with the majority, but based his opinion on a violation of immigration laws from 1940 and 1952, not on the Constitution, leaving a legislative door open.
This ruling represents the third significant judicial defeat for Trump before the Supreme Court in recent months, following the February 2026 decision that invalidated his tariffs and the one that prevented him from dismissing Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve.
The Legislative Bet and Its Challenges
At the same time, Trump is pushing an offensive in Congress to eliminate birthright citizenship through ordinary legislation.
"It is not necessary to have a long and complicated constitutional amendment. Congress should start WORKING TODAY to put an end to the costly and unjust birthright citizenship!" he wrote on Truth Social.
However, legal experts warn that modifying the 14th Amendment would require a constitutional amendment and 60 votes in the Senate, a threshold considered highly unlikely in the current Congress.
The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, expressed support but acknowledged his own limitations. "Without a doubt, the time has come to do everything possible. I don't know what that is," he stated to CNN.
The argument of "birth tourism"
Trump justified his offensive by pointing to billboards in South Texas advertising childbirth packages for around $4,000, calling it a "scam." "U.S. CITIZENSHIP IS NOT FOR SALE!" he wrote.
The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, ordered an investigation on Monday into the Mission Regional Medical Center for allegedly profiting from that practice.
However, according to the Pew Research Center, birth tourism is statistically marginal: between 2016 and 2024, there were only 80,500 cases recorded, representing 0.24% of the total births during that period.
The administration is also considering prohibiting the entry of foreign pregnant women as an additional measure, although experts warn that this approach faces significant constitutional obstacles.
The Cuban-American congresswoman María Elvira Salazar distanced herself from Trump and supported the ruling: “The Constitution is clear, and we must always respect the rule of law,” she wrote on X.
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